Planning’s Position in the ‘Hollowing-Out’ and ‘Filling-In’ of Local Government in Ireland

Pausing for reflection following several years of rapid change, academia has recently witnessed a growth in literature examining how the purposes and organisational architectures of planning have been revised in a post-recessionary world awash with neoliberal critiques on inefficiencies in the regulation of land-use (Allmendinger, 2016; Feitelson, 2018; Inch, 2018; Jackson, 2018; Lord & Tewdwr-Jones, 2014; Papageorgiou, 2017). Ireland is no stranger to such recession-stimulated reform. Indeed, a torrent of transformation has recalibrated the Irish planning system since the great recession stormed across the Atlantic in 2008, sweeping away the country’s property development sector and flattening exchequer finances. This crisis supplied an opportunity for change by powerful actors seeking reform to the system of territorial governance that they perceived as ineffective and unnecessarily expensive. Hence, in the wake of the recession, change has been experienced at all levels of the governance hierarchy, but perhaps nowhere more so than at the level of local government where the majority of planning activity takes place. Ostensibly, these changes were initiated in an effort to streamline the delivery of services for greater efficiency. However, questions remain as to what ‘efficiency’ means and who benefits in this context. Surprisingly, there has been little published reflection by planning academics and practitioners on the scale and consequences of these changes in Ireland. Therefore, this piece addresses this deficit by providing an overview and critical reading of the recent reorganisation and recalibration of Irish local government within the context of a broader reorientation of planning.